November 20, 1975: Thursday

The helo for Jack and Martin came about eleven o’clock. It had Howard on it. They were going to Vanda, so Dr. Nakai and I went along.

All of us had headsets and Sluys was teaching a Kiwi pilot how to take off and land.

Lake Vanda is in Wright Valley, up past Marble Point, over the Wilson Piedmont Glacier, take a left over the Lower Wright Glacier, and there you are, in the Dry Valleys, rich brown earth, stark naked in the shadow’s of the midnight sun, steep walled mountains with lumps and stringers of ice and snow inching over the top and down the valley, more like canyon walls. Flying low above the floor. The Onyx River flows away from the sea, from the glacier to the lake, now dry and barren, snaking its thirsty way down the valley.

If only the climate were suitable, for it would be a paradise, with wagon trains coming up over the glacier, lowering their Conestogas over the other side to farm the fertile valley.

Lake Vanda Station has four buildings, painted the same as Scott Base, with four residents, a young guy, two others with beards, and an older elfin man who shoves huge slices of bread under your nose and pours coffee into tea cups.

Howard collects ice and water samples. The lake is shaped much like Auburn’s, but larger, with a peninsula sticking out into it. No picnic grills on it, though. I walk out onto the ice. It’s a lot scarier than at 1A because the ice is clear.

You can see up the valley to the Dias, a tabular mountain, that marks where the valley splits into North and South forks.

We return. Rich tells the Kiwi pilot about the seals that swim up the Onyx River later in the season when the glacier melts.

Howard asks Rich about helo squadrons. He explains that duty in Antarctica doesn’t advance your career.

“Because there’s no combat flight time.”

“You could try,” from me.

“I tell ‘em I’m fighting the Battle of the Antarctic.”

“Who’s winning, you or Kathy?”

“That was mean.” He turned around and looked at me. “Gee, you’re red in the face. You must be jealous.”

I said, “Yup,” for lack of anything better to say.

Got back about 2:00 a.m. The night shift was mad because I sent the films home for new ones. They told me to do it, so I did.

Got a paper from home. They put an outhouse in the middle of the stop light intersection on Halloween. All right!

Woke up about 9:30. Felt guilty about oversleeping.

Cal had been getting wash samples all night and one dry, open barrel sample. The round tubular plastic bags Peter suggested didn’t work so well.

Cal went to sleep and I read a little while. About eleven o’clock someone said, “Hark, I think they’re pulling up the sampler,” or something insinuating that I should get to work.

When I got to the rig, the core had been thrown into a bucket from Gupwell’s sampler. The first thing I looked for were hard, round, real core fragments. I could see none. My next thought was to measure the tide. While I was looking for something to measure it with, Dr. Nakai pointed out the sample. It was a very muddy sample, with a thin layer of water on top. All over the surface little piles of sand were being pushed up and little streamers of sand were running down the sides of the cone shaped piles.

Dr. Nakai thought that he should get a water sample, but the water was well down in the casing and not bubbling.

Jack the Driller measured the tide for me while I tried to get Nakai to take a sample from the bucket. After a little running around and coaxing, he got his big glass injector with a funnel, inverted on one end of the tubing, and got enough water with gas in it for a sample.

I was busy doing everything else, getting depths and marking plastic bags.

The drillers were all standing around watching the sediment. Terry asked me what it was. I told him we’d find out when the gas chromatograph got warmed up.

They seemed concerned, like they wanted it to be methane so they could go home. So we were standing in the Wannigan watching the chart recorder.

“That is oxygen, and nitrogen,” - Dr. Nakai.

“And this is methane.”

The pen went off the graph and stayed there awhile.

I asked, “Considerable methane, maybe two-thirds?”

That was affirmative.

“Well, that’s it,” said Terry. “I’ll go tell Leon.”

I asked him if I should call Mac Center to contact Dr. Treves. By the end of the conversation, I had told him that I was going to call him. Instead of permission, it turned into a decision.

So at noon I asked Mac Center to relay to Dr. Treves that there was methane in the hole at 612 feet. Dr. Nakai had run it through a different column and discovered CO2. He was working on percentages when Mac Center got hold of 589. So they patched the conversation.

I passed on the characteristics of the sediment, percentages of dissolved gasses (37.9% CH4), and answered questions.

At twelve-thirty Terry and I were sitting in 590 when Dr. Treves and Jack H. came on. The first thing they wanted to know was if all the rod had been pulled from the hole.

Affirmative.

Jack said to put shutdown procedures into operation. Turn off all engines, pumps, the Herman-Nelson, and move the electric generator away from the rig. No smoking. Move the detector to the mess tent. I think he meant the gas chromatograph. I hope so.

Instructions to change a column in the gas chromatograph and test for ethane and hydrocarbons coming out of the casing.

Talked again at two. No ethane and no methane in the drill shack. Plans put into operation to get Henry, Dave, and Jerry out here. Also Hamish and Kathy are coming out for the election.

The helo arrived about six. Calvin woke up. No one knew what was going on except Kathy and me.

So things were a bit messed up for awhile. We agreed that Cal or I should be more or less in charge, depending on who’s shift it was. That person would make radio contact, which was pretty often.

We talked a couple of times to Dr. Treves. Everyone talking, including Rich Sluys. The hassle is that Hamish and Kathy and two tourists had to go home, but Rich had put on too much fuel to take them all home because he was coming back to pick up Henry and Jerry to take them back to the Valleys.

But now their measurements would take too long, and there was no reason for him to fly back out. Kathy didn’t want to go home because she was afraid she wouldn’t get back out tomorrow.

I guess the Glomar got 20% methane. They say this will make headlines. They’re calling Washington tomorrow.

So Henry decided they needed some air-tight glass bottles and Dr. Treves decided that they wanted the water samples.

Kathy had offered to stay overnight. She’d brought her sleeping bag. But I told her the tent smelled like old socks. Now, it was unnecessary. She had to take the core and samples home.

Henry got the water sample up. No methane in it. That’s the same status we’ve had all day.

Jerry got a positive 0.44º Celsius, compared to -1.087º just a few meters above it a few days ago.

The water in the casing is above sea level, too.

Kathy and I did the ice deflections in the meantime. She said she could see through the ‘scope the bewilderment on my face when she gave me her up-down-level signals.

Rich brought three movies back out and stayed to watch one of them until the fog started coming in.

Earlier today Nakai and I (Nakai, mostly) brought the gas chromatograph into the cook tent and cleared a space for it on the table. There was a lot of consternation from a couple of drillers, down right abusive, really. They suggested we just move the Wannigan. I almost did, but good sense revived me. Quig had words about the used up space. I told him it would stay used up until I said differently. Without Jack or Dr. Treves, everyone’s a boss. To do what has to be done requires a bit of fortitude, even if you don’t have the authority.

Later tonight Nakai thinks that we have hit a small layer of anaerobic bacteria producing methane. He wanted this passed on to Dr. Treves with other information.

I think that hypotheses should be kept separate from data.

At six they referred us to pages 15-16 of the second appendix to the Ops Plan. I ran all over the place looking for it. Jim had taken it to his tent. The plan concerned procedures on the Deep Sea Drilling Project concerning hydrocarbons.

It seems that I have followed the Ops Plan and the recommended procedures without even knowing it.

Again, I’m in the middle of something that stops drilling and ties up radio communication, holding down the fort while others digest the situation. It’ll be at least ‘til tomorrow until I find out whether I acted right or wrong.

But regardless, I’ll remember countlessly walking back and forth from the rig on errands and, in the back of mind, realizing that thing could blow up without warning. A slim chance with the data we have, but still there.